on the light, then in your dream you saw the wall bulging and ran for
the door. But you were only sleepwalking, you were still asleep when
you pulled the door open, still asleep when you saw the boogeyman an
screamed, which was when you finally woke up for real, screamed yourself
awake.
She wanted to believe that explanation, but it was too pat to be
credible.
No nightmare she’d ever known had been that elaborate in its texture and
detail. Besides, she never sleepwalked.
Something real had been reaching for her. Maybe not the insect-reptile
spider thing in the doorway. Maybe that was only an image in which
another entity clad itself to frighten her. But something had been
pushing through to this world from. . .
From where?
It didn’t matter where. From out there. From beyond. And it almost
got her.
No. That was ridiculous. Tabloid stuff Even the National Enquirer
didn’t publish trash that trashy any more. I WAS MIND-RAPED BY A BEAST
FROM BEYOND. Crap like that was three steps below SINGER ADMITS BEING
SPACE ALIEN, two steps belOw JESUS SPEAKS TO NUN FROM INSIDE A
MICROWAVE, and even a full step below ELVIS HAD BRAIN TRANSPLANTED,
LIVES NOW AS ROSEANNE BARR.
The more foolish she felt for entertaining such thoughts, the calmer she
became. Dealing with the experience was easier if she could believe
that it was all a product of her overactive imagination, which had been
unreasonably stimulated by the admittedly fantastic Ironheart case.
Finally she was able to stand on her own, without leaning on the door.
She relocked the deadbolt, reengaged the security chain.
As she stepped away from the door, she became aware of a hot, stinging
pain in her left side. It wasn’t serious, but it made her wince, and
she realized that a similar but lesser pain sizzled in her right side as
well.
She took hold of her T-shirt to lift it and look at herself and
discovered that the fabric was slashed. Three places on the left side.
Two on the right.
It was spotted with blood.
With renewed dread, Holly went into the bathroom and switched on the
harsh fluorescent light. She stood in front of the mirror, hesitated,
then pulled the torn T-shirt over her head.
A thin flow of blood seeped down her left flank from three shallow
gashes. The first laceration was just under her breast, and the others
were spaced at two-inch intervals. Two scratches blazed on her right
side, though they were not as deep as those on the left and were not
bleeding freely.
The claws.
Jim threw up in the toilet, flushed, then rinsed his mouth twice with
mint-flavored Listerine.
The face in the mirror was the most troubled he had ever seen. He had to
look away from the reflection of his own eyes.
He leaned against the sink. For at least the thousandth time in the
year, he wondered what in God’s name was happening to him.
In his sleep he had gone to the windmill again. Never before had the
same nightmare troubled him two nights in a row. Usually, weeks passed
between reoccurrences.
Worse, there had been an unsettling new element-more than just the rain
on the narrow windows, the lambent flame of the candle and tire dancing
shadows it produced, the sound of the big sails turning outside the low
rumble of the millstones below, and an inexplicable pall of fear.
This time he’d been aware of a malevolent presence, out of sight but
drawing nearer by the second, something so evil and alien that he could
not even imagine its form or full intentions. He had expected it to
burst out of the limestone wall, erupt through the plank floor, or
explode in upon him from the heavy timbered door at the head of the mill
stairs. He had been unable to decide which way to run. Finally he had
yanked open the door and awakened with a scream. If anything had been
there, he could not remember what it had looked like.
Regardless of the appearance it might have had, Jim knew what to call
it: the enemy. Except that now he thought of it with a capital “T” and